on the Inside
by Mad Malang
Summary: Set right after the release of Inside. Dan and Blair navigate their feelings...
1. Chapter 1

On the Inside…

_**Dan**_

If he had to pin it down, he would say it was her eyes.

Somehow, no matter what she did or how she insulted him or pushed him around (quite literally, most of the time) it always seemed to boil down to her eyes.

Dan Humphry had never really understood the power those eyes had over him but now that he thought about it, and he thought about her quite often lately, it had always been there. Five years ago, when he was infatuated with a shiny, glittery blonde with a tinkling laugh and back when Blair Waldorf was little more than the bitch who had dedicated her life to making his miserable, her eyes still had power over him. That's probably why, when his girlfriend and his girlfriend's best friend were running in opposite directions in tears after a falling out at a fashion show all those years ago, he chose to chase after the latter.

Chose to sit in a cramped hallway and pour his heart out to the one person who he knew couldn't care less.

It was because he saw those huge brown eyes and for a brief moment when she didn't have the foresight to put her mask back on, he glimpsed the vulnerability she hid behind all the time.

Ever since then, he had somehow always gone back for more. Every time she had come to him needing his help…with Chuck, with NYU, with fitting in, with scheming, with everything… he had never really been able to resist her.

'Just say no', if only it were that easy.

How does one say 'no' to Blair Waldorf?

He didn't know exactly when he fell in love with her but it had been coming for a while. For some reason their 'friendship' was the easiest one he had ever encountered. Naturally, not her, she was never easy to deal with. She was still demanding, pushy, exhausting and the snob she always was. And yet they could tell each other everything. At a point in both their lives where they had both been ceremoniously crushed and crippled by the significant 'loves of their lives', they somehow helped each other pick up the pieces and put them back together. He knew, deep, deep down that she felt it too but he knew just as clearly that she would, could never admit to it. He knew that kiss had meant something and that 'something' was terrifying for them both. But while, it made him want to delve deeper it made her shut down and run to what she considered familiar. And whatever else Chuck and Blair/ Blair and Chuck may have been, they were certainly familiar.

Of course, she was too _Blair_ to do the kind thing and cut him off completely. No, she had to string him along until he was completely, madly in love with her and she was in the process of being crowned Princess, literally. Dan laughed bitterly at the realisation that his first kiss made her feel she wanted to live with Chuck and his second was contrived so she could live with Louis. He didn't dare think what a third could mean and yet…it was all he could think about most of the time.

When she told him about the baby, his could feel his insides shattering. She was having someone else's baby and he was…well, he wasn't even really in the picture and it was now finally time to admit it. But then she turned to him and in true Humphry fashion he decided he would play the confidant, the nursemaid…really, whatever she needed because he had missed her while she was gone and he realised he was completely useless without her in his life. Those three months in the Hampton's had been hell and now she was here and she occasionally leaned on him. And, of course, she really _did_ smell nice. Yes, it was pathetic but he was beyond caring at this point.

And then the damned book came out and what he always knew would happen finally happened. There was a hopeful, tiny, stupid part of his heart that had believed she would read his 383-page sonnet to her and find it in her heart to admit her own feelings. It was a stupid thing to cling to but he had clung to it nevertheless, until she stormed into that damned study and told him their 'friendship' was now over.

She'd said the same thing dozens of times before and never really meant it but this time he chose to believe her. Not because she had meant it but because he was tired … and frankly, he was done. It was an odd self-righteous rage that now burned inside him. All those years of putting up with all the shit they all had put him through…Serena and her mood swings, and her boyfriends and her madness; Nate and his theatrics; Blair and her bitchiness, Yale, Jenny, Vanessa…he had put up with it all and with his usual quiet stoicism and one mistake on his part was enough for everyone to leave him. He wrote the truth, as truthful as fiction could be, and that was enough to kill everything.

So be it.

Dan spent the week after the book launch getting piss drunk, the kind of drunk that would have made Chuck proud. Then he changed his address, having cash finally allowed him to leave the loft and he moved to small apartment uptown with a snazzy view. He bought himself a flat screen and rearranged his bookshelg every day because it never quite fit. He ordered take out every day and forgot to shower for a while. He dropped his dad a voicemail telling him the keys to the loft were in the mail but didn't take any of his calls. Then one night, when he was slightly sober, after six cups of coffee, he logged off of gossip girl and unsubscribed.

It was the final tethering.

They didn't want him and now he finally had a reason to leave behind the fragments of his high school self. Lily, called him to tell him Blair had been calling him non stop and that she had even been to the loft asking for him; that Nate had asked where he was and that Serena needed to speak to him about some 'movie thing' but he politely told her he was 'not going to be available and he'd changed his cell and could she please convey that to his…fri-, to them'.

"For how long, Dan? You can't do this indefinitely, honey. You're not Charles," she said.

"No. But I am done. I'll see you all when I want to. I just need to get away. I'm busy enough as is, so" he murmured.

Hanging up on his life could be the best thing he did or the worst but either way he knew it was what he needed. He needed to get away from a pair of brown eyes that had somehow taken up residence in his heart.

The fact that he had to drink himself to sleep every night and that he hadn't shaved in two weeks had nothing to do with anything.

Besides, Alessandra said it made him seem more 'legit'.

Go figure.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Blair**_

She was going to kill Humphry. At least that's what she told herself every day but she was more worried than mad. How _dare_he think he could just drop off the face of the earth and not tell anyone where he was? Not tell her.

If she were honest with herself, and she usually wasn't, it was bothering her more than she thought possible. That he could just walk out of her life so easily. Sure, she had told him they were no longer friends but she had said that dozens of times and every time he had made sure to annoy her about some silly thing a few days later. It had been nearly a month and she didn't even know where he was anymore. She had scoured Gossip Girl but the website blurb stating 'Dan Humphry is no longer a registered user' bothered her more than she could admit. She went to the loft only to find the place empty and she almost cried. The only thing left was Rufus' records which were being packed into boxes. Everything else was gone. Blair walked to his study and saw his bookcase empty, there was no Cedric, no waffles and no Dan. His cell phone said his service had been disconnected.

For the past couple of weeks she had been living with a gnawing fear that she might not ever see him again and somehow that seemed scarier than anything else she could imagine. Even Louis had begun to notice.

"Why does it matter so much? You said that the book wasn't real and you had a fight. Give him his space," he said casually.

"I know, but it's like he's just cut us all out. I know we've always said how no one could care either way if Dan was 'in' or not but that was because I never thought he'd actually leave," Blair whined.

"Does it matter if he does? You have your other friends. Your 'real' friends," Louis said with an air of finality.

Blair knew where this was going and it was better to avoid the subject entirely. After all, her fiancé didn't particularly like Dan following the release of 'Inside' and while Blair wished she could retain her initial rage at her friend's particular use of artistic license, she no longer could. She had read the whole book and even she couldn't contain the fact that she had fallen in love with it. It was just such an odd feeling to expect to find oneself cast the lead villain in a fairytale about a pauper falling in love with a 'fair maiden' to find that the fairy tale was really all about the maiden's decidedly less shiny best friend. That he had seen her clearer than anyone else and that he had done so all along. She understood what he had meant about not writing the book in retrospect.

'Inside' had taken Dan five years of journal-like fiction writing. He had documented things as they happened and his … 'feelings' for Blair emerged in the narrative just as tentatively and self-consciously as they did in real life. Once you got to the end of the book, you suddenly realised he had been in _lo-_..., no, he had _feelings,_ for her all along. It was a revelation that the author clearly had at the exact same time as his reader. Blair had begun spending hours in the bathroom reading her favourite passages again and again. It was fast becoming a guilty pleasure that no one but Dorota was aware of.

Dan had written about making love to her. Sure, it was a fantasy but she couldn't help but feel aroused every time she read the words to herself. And, though she would never admit it, she had begun dreaming about his hands on her at night. She had even begun comparing Louis' kisses to that one kiss that had truly been 'life changing'. Still, Blair knew she was in too deep now. She was going to marry a prince and have his baby and rule his kingdom at his side. She couldn't let a small thing like a book and a bad case of unrequited love ruin that.

A month after she had seen him, Blair saw his picture in the Sunday section of the New York Times. He was at some book signing and he had his arm slung around a tall redhead. He had a beard and his hair was just as unruly as ever. He looked like a yeti! A yeti, with the bone structure of a movie star and what the caption read was the 'number 2 bestseller on the times list'. He looked tired but his smile still stole her breath away and Blair found herself frozen at the breakfast table.

"Honey? Is everything alright?" Louis asked, his arm gently patting her hand.

Suddenly Blair couldn't breathe properly and she said she needed to use the toilet so she left her fiancé staring after her with a look of concern.

"Dorota, I need you to call Mark. Tell him I need to speak to him now," she said the instant she reached her room.

"Miss Blair, why we need private eye at this time?" Dorota chirped.

"That is none of your business. NOW" she whined.

After calling Mark and waiting for a good two hours while he worked his magic, Blair found herself armed with an address and a cup of coffee. She sat on a bench outside a mid-sized apartment building near the NYU campus.

Daniel Humphry, apartment 41-N.

But the clerk at the desk had said he wasn't in yet so she waited outside on a bench hoping to spot him and when she did she almost choked on her coffee. There he was, in his faded jeans, his new almost-beard and his typical plaid under the jacket. However, what really bothered her was his arm, and the way it was curled around the red head from the photo. They were talking about his book and Blair suddenly remembered seeing the tall floozy at his book launch party. She recalled something about her being his agent or something. Blair focused on her perfectly set red curls and her Givenchy coat in a toned-dull silver. She was … well put together, she acknowledged and Blair hated her on sight. If anything, her mind was already mapping out different ways to ensure she never set foot within a mile of her…_friend_… again. The pair were talking animatedly until Dan leaned down to pull his keys out of his pocket and Blair saw the red head pull his head to hers and plant a deep kiss on his lips.

That was what did it.

"Why Humphry, funny running in to you here!" she crooned from behind him, as the two sprang apart.


	3. Chapter 3

**Detante**

On some level that voice jarred the hell out of him and his skin crawled being caught _being_kissed by someone else by Blair Whaldorf, of all people. But a much larger part of him revelled in the sound. God, he had missed that voice. He'd missed that ridiculous, bossy overtone and he'd missed the subtle scent of her trademark Channel No5.

He turned around slowly to see her standing before him. He supposed Alessandra turned around as well, but frankly at this point, she might as well not have existed, that's how much notice he took of her. The first thing he noticed about Blair was that she was seething. The anger practically coming off her in waves and oddly enough, the sight was…sexy as hell. She was dressed in crimson and enveloped in a large overcoat. Her hair impeccably braided as usual and her eyes equal parts venom and something…he couldn't quite identify. It appeared to be possessiveness but that made absolutely no sense. The second thing he noticed was that she was much more…obviously pregnant. Her belly protruded softly under the coat but her shoulders were just as tiny as ever. The sight made Dan's throat ache and she had never looked more beautiful and that was saying something.

"Umm, so I'll see you later on Daniel. Don't forget we have that meeting with the senior publishers tomorrow afternoon," Alessandra said and skulked away from the seething brunette.

Dan nodded but didn't turn around to look at her or even say goodbye. It was almost as if he was frozen in place and they were both just staring at each other. It was enough, the staring. At least for him but he knew it wouldn't be enough for her, at least not for long and he'd rather be yelled at or…worse, in the privacy of his apartment.

"You're right Whaldorf, it is funny seeing you here. But since you are here why don't you just come on up," Dan tried to say in as casual a tone as he could summon.

…..

Something about his voice made Blair even angrier. He sounded …weary. As if she was an inconvenience he had to deal with and that thought terrified her more than she cared to admit. Blair, for her part, couldn't help but notice that his hair was even more unruly up close. He desperately needed a haircut. Either that or for someone to run their fingers through them and straighten them….what the! Blair mentally swatted herself.

Blair stood by his side as they rode the elevator and suddenly it all felt terribly awkward. It was an alien feeling for the both of them. They had been many things over the years: enemies, frenemies, friends, confidantes and perhaps even more if they let each other go there, but they had never, ever been awkward. Dan was one of the few people Blair never screened for. She never censored her thoughts or pretended to be…better or worse than she was. She never tried to win him over or to scare him shitless. He was just Dan, and with him she had always been just Blair. But somehow, right now she felt like they were strangers. He hadn't said a word and he wasn't even looking at her, his eyes weren't soft like they _always_were and his voice wasn't the good-natured sardonic musing that it always was when directed at her. He seemed like he didn't want her there and Blair was shocked to find herself nearly hyperventilating at that thought.

She was just mulling over how he was so much taller than her and blast her pregnancy for making her lose all patience with high heels. In flats, she realised that Dan practically towered over her and for some reason his shadowy chin and hair made him seem older than when they'd last met. She was just about to try and break the tension when the elevator doors **dinged** and Dan led her to his apartment.

It was a small place and despite some obvious luxuries the place still reeked of Humphery and that thought was immensely comforting. He was still setting up his books and there were small, alphabetised piles scattered all over the apartment. Dan moved to his kitchen and started making two cups of coffee…and somewhere between the whooshing sounds of the percolator and his turned back Blair couldn't take it anymore.

"You said I'd always have you! You lied," she half sobbed and half yelled.

….

It took him a few seconds to digest her words and the guilt literally tore through him like angry, hissing flames. All he wanted to do was live up to those promises he had made of 'holding her hand through it all' but he really no longer had the strength. He turned around slowly and whispered

"Look Blair, I…"

And then the punches started. She was standing right behind him and suddenly she was pummelling his chest with tears running down her face.

"Do you know how worried I was, you…you jackass!" she yelled.

"I thought you'd dropped off the planet. How dare you just check out like that without telling me. I never thought you'd treat me like Chuck but seriously you are no better, you…" she was on a roll.

"Blair. You said we were no longer friends," he sighed.

"_And_ you believed me? Since when do you buy that? I've been saying we're not friends since we became friends but somehow it never stopped your stubborn, idiotic lump-of-muscle-excuse-for-a-brain from rejecting that then…"she continued.

"Maybe I wanted to accept it this time," he whispered and suddenly there was stone silence. She froze, she hiccupped slightly and he saw tears glistening in her eyes and her upper, oh-so kissable lip trembling and he felt like shit but he had to go through this all the way if her was ever to come out the other side with is sanity even remotely intact.

"So…so, you don't want to be my friend. You really don't want to have anything to do with me?" she whispered and her voice cracked and something about that made Dan die a little inside because Blair Whaldorf's voice never cracked. And never in front of Dan Humphery.

"Blair, listen to me. For once can you just hear me out and promise not to say anything until I'm done?" he asked her, lightly grabbing hold of her tiny wrists and removing them from his chest where she had unknowingly been clutching at cheap, 18 dollar, flannel shirt she so deeply hated.

Blair nodded slowly, partly because she was too frozen to continue her tirade and partly because she would do anything to keep him just talking to her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Confessions**

Dan took in a deep breath and looked straight into her eyes, hoping he could get this all out before he simply drowned into them and agreed to do whatever she asked all over again.

"Blair you're right I don't want to be your friend anymore but you're wrong when you think I don't want to have anything to do with you. We became friends ages ago Blair, whether or not you can admit it. We became friends five years ago in a hallway where I poured my heart out to you and you didn't cut me in half for once. We became something else last summer and I have been able to tell you things I haven't told anyone. You're my match Blair and much as you may pretend to bristle at that, I know you feel it too because nothing else would have had you in Brooklyn every week on my couch and sleeping on my shoulder after eating pizza and sleeping in my old T-shirts. That kiss Blair, it was everything. At least for me. Nothing, nothing will ever hurt me as much as you're reaction to that same experience," as he said this part Dan turned away.

He couldn't look into her eyes anymore and she couldn't look anywhere at all really. Blair had stopped breathing a while ago but her tears were making her hiccup slightly, so at least she knew she was still standing.

Dan continued "I kissed you and you remembered that you wanted Chuck and then you asked me to kiss you so you could be with Louis and I realised that I was way in over my head. Even then, I couldn't…quit you. I still needed you around because honestly Blair, whether or not we were 'together', I just needed to tell you things. Everything. I need to tell you when I disagree with Prof Hausner in Philosophy, especially when he traces modern thought to the empiricists rather than the enlightenment; I need to tell you when the coffee guy, Ted, at the NYU café spills strawberry foam into latte's because you nearly slapped him once for it; I need to tell you about every book, every movie and every stupid scarf purchase but I couldn't. When you left for Monaco and didn't talk to me all summer…it was the worst summer of my life. Serena and I broke up dozens of times and each time I picked myself up, dusted off and got back in the game but you and I just kissed and I couldn't get off the couch for nearly three months. All I did was read and watch movies and make notes about them to share with you if you'd damned well bother to pick up the phone."

Blair flinched inwardly at that and he could see the tensing of her shoulders and some sadistic bit of him felt glad she was hurting just a little too.

"That day when you asked me to take you away, you wanted to know why I wouldn't tell you about Louis and I couldn't say it then. I hadn't planned it that way but suddenly you were back there in my apartment, in front of me asking me to help you run away and it felt like it would be my last chance so I took it. I'm sorry. I know I wasn't a great friend that day but I promise Blair, every day since, I tried. I really did," his voice began trembling. Almost like he was exhausted and Blair couldn't believe he was apologising to her … that hurt more than anything else.

"I know you didn't feel anything for me. Hell, I knew that you would deny it to yourself till kingdom come if you did, _especially_ if you did. But when I found out about the baby it all became bigger than me. Now I had to be there and I would have been but Blair this book and how you all ditched me after, it changed things for me. I didn't mean for it to come out and it _IS__FICTION_ but even if it weren't, suddenly it hit me how absolutely disposable I am to you. To all of you. I won't take that anymore Blair because honestly with all the shit I've put up with quietly it was excruciating, how easy I was to cut out for all of you. I just had to make one mistake and that was it? I'm done and honestly, I wont deny that not being around you and Louis…it makes it a little easier to breathe. I want you to be happy Blair. I'll fight for your happiness if I have to but I just can't stand around and watch it play out anymore because I'm not in it. I'm not even close," he whispered.

There it was done.

….

She didn't know where to start, really. She didn't even know when it had all started. She did know that he cared. If she was honest with herself she knew it like she knew his face. She had known the kiss had meant something and she had known that he was the one she ran to because she felt the same thing. She knew that when they were talking or watching a movie, she stared at his hands and wondered what they would feel like on hers. She knew that his laugh was breathtaking…no, literally. It took her breath away when he laughed and she immediately responded with something snide to quell the _butterflies_ in her stomach. She also knew that she had buried all of that so deep for a reason. She had run to Chuck because while Chuck could never be called safe, he was familiar. And he was certainly safer than this. Dan and Blair, Blair and Dan…how would that even work? What would people say? Gossip Girl would have a field day. He was Brooklyn and flannel shirts and middle class morals and she was couture and class and could-be royalty. It didn't matter if his kiss had made her see stars and it didn't matter that when she slept on his couch and in his arms she slept more peacefully than she ever had in her satin sheets and silk pillows. She had dreams of a pretty tiara and a perfect life up for grabs and then there was a prince, with a missing slipper asking for her hand and seriously, what girl ever had a better, lovelier escape route than a palace and the chance to be a princess? What idiot would pass that up for a life spent watching movies in a loft with Dan Humphery in Brooklyn? And Blair Whaldorf refused to act like an idiot. They say 'True Love was for fairytales'. How ironic. Her fairytale trumped all notions of true love and was grounded in limp, polite affection.

But now there was nowhere to run from it. He had said everything. He had said so much and she was left holding the string of his words and wondering whether to choke herself with it or weave a new one of her own. It occurred to her suddenly, how big a deal it was when Serena had come to her and whispered 'You're the star of Dan's book'. Her glittering, glowing best friend had dimmed as she said it. Only a tiny, shimmer left as she acknowledged the man she had lost to _her_of all people! Someone wanted Blair more than Serena, and this was someone who had had Serena! She had scoffed at it because admitting that that stunningly executed song of the upper east side that everyone was now fighting to claim rights to, was written for her was just too _inconvenient_.

Her feelings for its author were _inconvenient_.

Her lack of passion for a young, handsome, rich prince who also happened to be the father of her child was perhaps most _inconvenient_.

Suddenly, it was all in front of her and the truth was staring her in the face in technicolor and the truth was that Dan Humphery - Cabbage Patch/ Lonely Boy/ Writer loved her and that she, Blair Whaldorf – Queen B/ Reigning Bitch of the Upper East Side/ closet hopeless romantic, loved him back.

But how does one acknowledge that without losing this game of scales. It occurred to her in that moment that Dan Humphery had played no games with her heart. He hadn't strung her along begging her to say those three words and those eight letters. He had written out over 380 pages of them for the world to see and he had just poured out his soul with his shoulder stooped and his voice cracking. Dan Humphery didn't play games. Dan Humphery loved you till the end and he never let you go, that's just who he was.

Blair stumbled upon her decision rather suddenly. After all, with all those years with Chuck all she had wanted was to feel secure in her love and that it was returned. She played the games and she gave as good as she got but she was never safe. Chuck and Serena were always going to be the wandering ones, they needed to jet set across the world the moment things got tough and to seek outlets rather than discussions. Neither were monogamous and neither lived for one person. She and Dan had always been built to chase after them even while they were with them. They were always keeping up and never just for keeps. This, this could be real. It could be for keeps.

In true, kindergarten yearbook trademark style, Blair chose her comeback from the best offensive she could muster.

"Okay Humphery, now it's my turn to say something. And you listen and you don't say anything until I'm done.

You are not disposable. Were you 'disposable', I wouldn't have been stalking you for the past month until I finally hired a private investigator to get you back into my life. Were you disposable, you wouldn't be my number one on my speed dial after that night you told me to get the DNA test. Were you disposable, I wouldn't have been reading every single interview you've had since you dropped off the planet just to see you. For the record, you need to fire your stupid agent because I cannot believe she let you go on Conan O' Brian wearing that ridiculous orange shirt! Frankly, you matched his hair and that's just offensive for even the most frivolously discerning viewer.

While, I admit that I may have been selfish and picked my fairy tale over my feelings, _**and**____**yes**_ there are feelings here, that doesn't mean that you are not 'in my life' or 'close'. The problem is and has always been that you are too in it and too close. So don't you dare think you can play the damned martyr through all this and I'll just feel guilty for the rest of my life because I don't do guilt! I know that you are the one I need in my life and I am sorry I didn't acknowledge it now but now that I'm acknowledging it you better just accept it and try and be gracious about the whole thing. That is, if you can manage gracious anymore.

Now, we need a plan. You said I would always have you and I don't care how much you think you can flake this off but I intend to hold you to that. I am going to tell Louis that I cannot be with him and then you are going to help me with this baby. You are going to help me paint a nursery; you are going to go with me doctors appointments and you are going to be with me in the delivery room and let me obliterate your hand. You are going to let _me_ decorate this place because I refuse for me or my child to live in an apartment where the walls are _grey_! Honestly, what the hell were you thinking? You are going to sit by my side and hold my hand while I tell my family why I've suddenly gone off the deep end and have turned down a prince for a flannel clad writer who cannot manage a decent hair cut. You are going to sit with me while we both tell Serena and Chuck that we are together and you are going to tell your father enough fabulous, fictitious snippets about me to make him somehow forget what I did to your sister. Then you are going to call that monstrosity of a sibling up and ask her that I want her to be there for the birth. I hope that you have no objections and if you do we can debate them and you can contribute your terms if you have any. We'll negotiate and when I win, we can put t in writing."

Then she took a long deep breath and tried to discern what the expression on his face meant. It was quite literally unreadable. He wasn't smiling or … terrified. He just stood with his head leaned slightly back to the left and his arms crossed in front of his chest …appraising her.

"There's one last thing I need to clear up," she said, her voice finally reduced a few octaves and almost husky.

"I love you, too".

Now she could see something, everything. Suddenly Dan was the one holding his breath and his eyes were … Dan, again. He was looking at her like he always did, like every word that came out of her mouth was worth writing down in one of his leather bound notebooks and like he would never, ever let her go.

"I should have said it when I read the book but let's face it you know me. I was hoping 'denial would last longer as a coping mechanism' and that I might not notice it all until after the wedding… wait, you were going to come to my wedding weren't you?" she asked, completely off kilter and off point.

"Actually, no Blair. I wasn't," Dan retorted, his voice oddly breathy.

"You ass! Do you know how rude it is to RSVP and not show up? The dinner alone was going to be 300 dollars a plate!" she ranted breathlessly, grasping desperately for some stupid excuse to detract from the magnitude of the situation.

"I did, in fact, RSVP Blair. I checked 'undecided' and I apologise in advance, for ruining your, hypothetical feast," he smiled.

"Don't worry, Humphery. You have the rest of your life to make up for it," she beamed back.

"I wouldn't expect anything less, Whaldorf," Dan whispered.


End file.
